We were now on the road to the last of the Mixe towns we should visit, Coatlan.

The road seemed endless, the ascent interminable; the town itself impressed us as exceptionally mean and squalid, and we stopped only long enough to eat a miserable dinner of eggs with chili and _tortillas_.

The women here wore native dress.

Several were clad as the Zapotec women from here to Tehuantepec, but a few were dressed in striking _huipilis_ of native weaving, with embroidered patterns, and had their black hair done up in great rings around their heads, bright strips of cloth or ribbon being intermingled in the braiding.

Literally and figuratively shaking the dust of the Mixe towns from our feet, we now descended into the Zapotec country.